Press Release

Robert Arneson

"Guardians of the Secret II"

September 14 - October 13

For Immediate Release

Opening the 1990-91 season at the Frumkin/Adams Gallery will be a one-work exhibition of Robert Arneson's most recent sculpture - a very large ceramic and mixed media work based on the Jackson Pollock painting, "Guardians of the Secret II" in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Robert Arneson has been absorbed in the persona, myth and art of Jackson Pollock for much of the last decade. His first works in 1982 were a series of Pollock portrait busts on paper and in ceramic. After a year's pause, Arneson returned to Pollock in a large series of drawings, sculptures and cast paper works which explored many aspects of Pollock's life and death but not specific art works produced by the artist. It was not until early in 1989 that he began studies for the work currently on view.

"Guardians of the Secret II" is a free-standing sculpture seven feet high, ten feet long and two feed deep that combines ceramic, steel, wood, painted canvas and found objects to interpret and give dimension to the images in the Pollock painting. It is clearly the culmination of Arneson's Pollock series and his most complex work to date.

"Guardians of the Secret II" will be on view in the main gallery from September 14th through October 13th.